In the Oberliga Niederrhein, the first coach of the current 2022/2023 season has thrown in the towel.

Six games, no win, two draws, four defeats: Fabian Springob, until now coach of FC Kray, has drawn his consequences after the 0:3 on Friday evening against promoted Sportfreunde Hamborn 07 and has resigned from the position of head coach. “Immediately after the match, coach Fabian Springob informed sporting director Rudi Zedi that he is resigning from his position as coach of our FC Kray,” reads a short, concise message on the Kray Facebook page.

Springob did not sign on at Buderusstraße until 1 July 2022 and was supposed to lead the youngest Oberliga squad among the 21 teams into safe territory. But after six games, FC Kray is in the penultimate, 20th place in the table.

On 26 August, Kray’s sporting director Rudi Zedi had vehemently backed Springob, telling RS: “The coaching question is a joke to me. We only had five players under contract at the beginning of July. We were faced with a mammoth task of putting the squad together.” In the current squad (24 men), 19 players moved to the KrayArena in the summer. Even in the face of this major upheaval, the sporting director called for patience. “We have the youngest team in the league and have only been in the season for two and a half weeks. It would be fatal to question the path we have taken,” Zedi emphasised.

But the ex-professional had not reckoned with Springob. Springob announced his resignation from FC Kray less than two weeks after these statements by Zedi.